Paris!

so i figured i´d give everyone a quick update! i have so much to write about so i´m going to make a different entry for each city...today=paris

Paris was AMAZING. I really did little to no research for this week, mainly because I wanted to make sure i enjoyed my time and wasn´t worried about rushing from museum to museum. We took a 5:25 am train through the chunnel. Friday we mainly just walked around, in awe of the city. Usually when I travel it doesn´t hit me where i was or how much I liked it until I get home, but for some reason we were all just in awe of Paris, kind of just walking around in a daze. (pictures to come when i get back to london)

We first headed to the Eiffel tower, where Arielle and I picked up a baguette and just sat and ate it on a bench...in front of the eiffel tower...amazing. It actually looked different than i had expected, it kind of looked like a bunch of scaffolding, not as ¨shiny¨ as i had pictured, but still breathtaking.

We then made our way to the luxenbourg gardens, which were BEAUTIFUL, just tons of fountains and beautiful flowers, and the sun was beginning to set so it was just a beautiful time to be sitting outside. After sitting in the gardens for a while taking in our surroundings we headed to the Notre Dame. We happened to walk in just as mass was starting, so I walked around a bit, then received communion and sat down for the rest of mass...this was exactly what I needed, after spending much of the day thinking about my family, wishing there was some way I could have made it home for a few hours, but nonetheless, i lit a candle and just took in what was going on around me.

that night we had an AMAZING dinner at this tiny restaurant...REAL french onion soup!! it was amazing...i then thought id try a crepe with egg and cheese, but it was VERY cheesy and kind of a lactate overload so i thought it best to back off.

Saturday we went to Versailles, i wasn´t going to go because i had heard it took up a whole day, and being that I just had until Sunday afternoon I wasn´t sure, but then i thought ´hey, youre in paris´...so i went. it was pretty cool, kind of overpriced but one of the things i think you have to do if youre in paris. that afternoon we thought we´d venture to the cemmetary where Oscar Wilde and some other playwrights were buried.

but first thing´s first, BAGUETTES! arielle, maggie and i stopped and picked up baguettes, along with tampanade and maybe wine, and sat in the beautiful cemmetary and had a little french picnic, on what we thought was just cement, but once we got up realized was a tomb...oops!

by the time we made it to the back of the cemmetary where youre supposed to ´kiss´oscar´s tomb, the cemmetary was closing, so like a good little girl i left, but maggie, arielle and dana were on a mission, so they pulled an ´oceans 11´ and snuck through the graves to find oscars. and just as they got there one of the cemmetary police dudes yelled at them in french and kicked them out the back entrance...no wonder everyone loves americans!

saturday night=going to the top of the eiffel tower. after waiting in line forever, we finally made it to the top, and it was GORGEOUS. then we were suddenly all depressed when we saw 3 proposals in like 3 minutes, oh well. deciding to go up at night was definately a smart move, the city looked beautiful.

sunday=the louvre...i had wanted to make it to both the louvre and the pompidue (spelling?)-the modern art museum, but i figured i should do the louvre, if nothing more to than to say i saw the mona lisa, which was about the only thing i knew was there.

...i should have just stayed outside. the outside of the louvre was beautiful, with fountains and glass pyramids coming out of the ground, but of course i paid the 9 euro. museums just aren´t my ´bag´ i´ve come to learn, they just bore the hell out of me, usually. and this was no exception...i know theyre places that i shouldn´t hate, and should learn from, but theyre just SO God awfully boring! oh well, after an hour at the louvre it was time to meet arielle for our venture to VENICE!

all in all, i think Paris was one of my favorite places I have ever been, every part of the city was amazing...but i think my favorite part would either be seeing the eiffel tower for the first time, or eating that bread in the cemmetary! i´m not looking forward to going back to gross London food!

i get home tomorrow night, so hopefully ill update about the rest of break soon! and pictures to come once i get home and upload them! adios